Bitch on Wheels: The Sharon Nelson Double Murder Case

When the body of 45-year-old Glen Harrelson was found in his Denver home, police tried to contact his wife, but soon they made a startling realization. She had played the part of grieving widow once before: Her previous husband also had died a mysterious accidental death...

Salt of the Earth

Joe Gere said he died on the afternoon his 12-year-old daughter Brenda disappeared. It was left to Brenda's mother Elaine to sustain her stricken family, search for her missing child, and pressure the authorities for justice. From the first minutes of the investigation, suspicion fell on Michael Kay Green, a steroid-abusing "Mr. Universe" hopeful, but there was no proof of a crime, leaving police and prosecutors stymied. Tips and sightings poured in as lawmen and volunteers combed the Cascades forest.

Silent Witness: The Karla Brown Murder Case (Onyx)

An account of the murder of Karla Brown describes how, after years of investigations, a prosecutor's brilliant courtroom strategies won a conviction against a long-time loser with a vicious hatred of women.

The Misbegotten Son

An account of the crimes of Arthur Shawcross describes how the paroled child killer shot, stabbed, suffocated, and strangled 16 Rochester, New York, prostitutes and examines how the legal system failed his victims.

The Night Stalker: The Life and Crimes of Richard Ramirez

Decades after Richard Ramirez left 13 dead and paralyzed the city of Los Angeles, his name is still synonymous with fear, torture, and sadistic murder. Philip Carlo's classic The Night Stalker, based on years of meticulous research and extensive interviews with Ramirez, revealed the killer and his horrifying crimes to be even more chilling than anyone could have imagined. The story of Ramirez is a bizarre and spellbinding descent into the very heart of human evil.

Rough Trade: A Shocking True Story of Prostitution, Murder, and Redemption

Early one morning in May, 1997, a young couple in the mountains of Colorado spotted a man dragging a body up a secluded trail. The man fled, leaving behind a bloody, dying woman. The investigation into the death of young street-walker Anita Paley would lead from that idyllic spot to the seamy underbelly of Denver and a world of prostitution, drug dealers, and violent criminals. And it would expose the lives of suspect Robert Riggan and Anita's friend Joanne Cordova, a former cop-turned-crack-addict and hooker.

A Killer Among Us

On March 16, 1992, Elizabeth DeCaro, a 28 year-old mother of four, was found dead in her own home, murdered execution-style with two bullets to the head. Her husband, Rick, was immediately a suspect, having previously struck her "accidentally" with the family van after taking out a $100,000 life insurance policy on her. A Killer Among Us presents the true shocking story of Elizabeth's family and their search for justice against the man who continued to play father to the children whose mother he had killed.

Murder in the Family

On March 15th, 1987 police in Anchorage, Alaska arrived at a horrific scene of carnage. In a modest downtown apartment, they found Nancy Newman's brutally beaten corpse sprawled across her bed. In other rooms were the bodies of her eight-year-old daughter, Melissa, and her three-year-old, Angie, whose throat was slit from ear to ear. Both Nancy and Melissa had been sexually assaulted.

If I Can't Have You:: Susan Powell, Her Mysterious Disappearance, and the Murder of Her Children

The tragic story of Susan Powell and her murdered boys, Charlie and Braden, is the only case that rivals the Jon Benet Ramsey saga in the annals of true crime. When the pretty, blonde Utah mother went missing in December of 2009 the media was swept up in the story - with lenses and microphones trained on Susan's husband, Josh. He said he had no idea what happened to his young wife, and that he and the boys had been camping in the middle of a snowstorm.

Bitter Blood: A True Story of Southern Family Pride, Madness, and Multiple Murder

In this unrelenting real-life drama of three wealthy families connected by marriage and murder, Bledsoe recounts the shocking events, obsessive love, and bitter custody battles that led toward the bloody climax that took nine lives.

Secret Lessons

This audiobook chronicles the shocking and appalling story of the handsome, popular, and energetic sixth-grade teacher in a Caseyville, Illinois, elementary school, who was accused of sexually abusing numerous young girls.

Precious Victims: Penguin True Crime

The police in Jersey County, Illinois, accepted Paula Sims' story of a masked kidnapper who snatched her baby girl, Lorelei, from her bassinet. Three years later, her second newborn daughter suffered an identical fate - and this time the police were unable to stop searching until they had discovered the whole horrifying truth. This is the full terrifying story of twisted sexuality and hate seething below the surface of a seemingly normal family and of the massive investigation and nerve-shattering trial that made the unthinkable a reality.

Every Mother's Nightmare

Reveals the harrowing story of two mothers, Jude Govreau and Mari Winzen, whose children were brutally killed by a vicious murderer, and recounts their efforts with a lone district attorney to bring the murderer to justice.

Failure of Justice: A Brutal Murder, an Obsessed Cop, Six Wrongful Convictions

Everyone felt the same way: Small-town Nebraska widow Helen Wilson didn't have an ounce of meanness in her body. Then, on February 5, 1985, one of the coldest nights on record, the unthinkable happened. The 68-year-old resident was murdered inside her second-floor apartment. But why?

Blood Games: A True Account of Family Murder

A true story detailing the events surrounding the murder of wealthy North Carolinian Lieth von Stein. The case seemed cold until police followed a trail leading to von Stein's stepson, a smart young man who was obsessed with Dungeons & Dragons and wrapped up in drugs.

Entering Hades: The Double Life of a Serial Killer

While serving a life sentence for the murder of a young girl, Jack Unterweger wrote seven books, saw his critically acclaimed autobiography made into a film, and became a cause celebre among influential Austrian literati who successfully campaigned for his release. Riding high on the fame, he arrived in Los Angeles where he nurtured his career as a journalist. Then, one by one, Hollywood prostitutes started turning up dead. Unterweger covered the story. There was a reason why his reporting of the crimes seemed so vivid.

Ice and Bone: Tracking an Alaskan Serial Killer

Ice and Bone is the chilling true account of how a demented murderer initially evaded police and avoided conviction only to slip back into the shadows and kill again. Journalist and writer Monte Francis tells the harrowing story of what eventually led to Wade's capture and reveals why the true scope of his murderous rampage is only now, more than a decade later, coming into view.

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Former social worker S. R. Reynolds has never forgotten the mishandled case of 15-year-old Michelle Anderson, a vibrant beauty who went missing from Reynolds' Knoxville, Tennessee, neighborhood years earlier. Aided by her old professor, famed forensic anthropologist Dr. Bill Bass, Reynolds picks up the trail of this cold case. As she presses neglected pieces of the puzzle into place, Reynolds unearths a string of heinous kidnappings and rapes across the South, crimes that span decades.

Cruel Deception: St. Martin's True Crime Library

In and out of hospitals since birth, angelic nine-month-old Morgan Reid finally succumbed to what appeared to be Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Morgan's Texas-born mother Tanya, a nurse and devoted wife, pulled up stakes with her grieving husband Jim, and moved on. It was the best way to put the past behind them. Until their son Michael, a boy who by all accounts was terrified of his mother, began showing signs of the same affliction that stole the life of his baby sister.

Too Pretty to Live: The Catfishing Murders of East Tennessee

When Bill Payne and Billie Jean Hayworth began their romance, they unknowingly set in motion a diabolical plot that would end with them murdered in their own home, Hayworth holding their mercifully unharmed infant. Chris was a CIA agent who was concerned about Jenelle. Seeing the cyberbullying she had endured, and worried for her safety, Chris got in touch with Jenelle's protective parents and her devoted boyfriend, warning them that Payne and Hayworth were a danger to Jenelle.

Wicked Takes the Witness Stand: A Tale of Murder and Twisted Deceit in Northern Michigan

On a bitterly cold afternoon in December 1986, a Michigan State trooper found the frozen body of Jerry Tobias in the bed of his pickup truck. The 31-year-old oil field worker and small-time drug dealer was clad only in jeans, a checkered shirt, and cowboy boots. Inside the cab of the truck was a fresh package of expensive steaks from a local butcher shop, the first lead in a case that would be quickly lost in a thicket of bungled forensics, shady prosecution, and a psychopathic star witness out for revenge.

A Checklist for Murder: The True Story of Robert John Peernock

Robert Peernock appeared to have the ideal life; working as a pyrotechnics engineer and computer expert and coming home to his wife and daughter, he projected the American dream. Even when he and his wife separated, it seemed amicable, just a small bump for the well-to-do family. But there was madness in his house: in private, Peernock was violent, subtly manipulative, and bordering on psychotic.

Publisher's Summary

Stella Nickell's small-time world was one of big-time dreams. In 1986, her biggest one came true when her husband died during a seizure, making her the beneficiary of a $175,000-plus insurance payoff - until authorities discovered that Bruce Nickell's headache capsules had been laced with cyanide. In an attempt to cover her tracks, Stella did the unconscionable.

She saw to it that a stranger would also become a 'random casualty' of cyanide-tainted painkillers. But Stella's cunning plan came undone when her daughter Cynthia notified federal agents. And troubling questions lingered like the secret of bitter almonds...

What would turn a gregarious barfly like Stella into a cold-hearted killer overnight? Why would Cynthia, a mirror image of her mother, turn on her own flesh and blood? Did Cynthia reveal everything she knew about the crimes? The stunning answers would unfold in a case that sparked a national uproar, dug deep into a troubled family history, and exposed an American mother for the pretty poison she was.

True crime readers will not be disappointed. Anyone wanting a quick overview of the Stella Nickell story may not be happy with all the detail which Olsen has meticulously tracked down and recounted, but if you want all the ins and outs of the plot and the characters, this book has it all. I wasn't counting, but this family must be in the race for the highest number of house moves and taking up temporary make-shift accommodation with friends or family, the most partner swaps, the most one night stands, the amount of alcohol consumed, and general bad parenting. On the other hand, they were either in work or looking for work, family (except mothers and daughters) were close-knit and stood by each other through thick and thin, and there was always a friend they could turn to in a crisis. Fascinating family, fascinating plot, intriguing outcome. Olsen's research is painstaking and he writes well, although the interweaving of the stories of the two victims' families was a bit confusing at first. Also I felt a bit of the story was missing in my version because it went straight from the jury room deliberations to after the verdict had been handed down which left me baffled about when the verdict had been reached and even more baffled about the phone call to a juror and possible re-trail which were being mentioned. I went back and listened to that section again to make sure it wasn't just me, but it still seemed that part of the book just wasn't there. It is very competently read by Kevin Pierce - a simple straight-forward emotion-free narration - just right for this type of book.

Interesting story, characters and excellent narration.... but about 10 hours too long. A lot of hashing and re-hashing of the same story. This book could probably have been completely told in half the time.

Okay, if you want a true crime book dripping in blood and bodily fluids, this is not going to be for you--and you might find something deeper than that "boring." But if you are looking for a book that delves into a crime from all angles: forensics, psychology, methodology--then this is going to be more up your dark alley. Inspired by his mentor Jack Olsen (no relation), Gregg Olsen has written a deep and thoughtful analysis of a very interesting--and curiously complicated--set of murders. A reader truly interested in the forensics, psychology and police work involved in solving a crime will enjoy every minute of this fine book. Gore seekers stay at home.

If you could sum up Bitter Almonds in three words, what would they be?

Is she guilty.

What did you like best about this story?

I like details and this book has a lot of details. You definitely don't feel deprived of information after listening to this book. Some reviews state that it was too long, I like all the added information it gives.

Have you listened to any of Kevin Pierce’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Kevin Pierce is my favorite narrator and his performances are always number one as far as I am concerned.

I found this book fascinating in the sense that a car wreck can be fascinating. We go through life not realizing there is a whole other culture out there. I was hoping for resolution and closure - but after doing a bit of research into the real case behind the book I now understand why none was possible.

This book is simply about a woman killing people using cyanide, so was not the book I thought it was.A very long drawn out story with a lot of pointless detail.It could have been summed up in less than a third of the 20 hours with writer took.

1 of 2 people found this review helpful

Geoff

1/29/16

Overall

Performance

Story

"Punchy! Gripping! Intense!"

A Page Turner from The Start! Not Holding Back, or Pulling It's Punches as it explains The Internal Strength and Loyalty, often, found within Families routed along The Lower Levels of Society, even, to A Fault on Many Occasions. Darkness is Never Far from The Surface Here as Characters and Plot Play Out from Gripping Chapter to Gripping Chapter! Olson is Indeed A Master of True Crime!! I Recommend This Book to All who are Fascinated by The Human Condition for Power, Influence, and Ego.

0 of 1 people found this review helpful

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